I butted my head against his thighs until he reached down, running his fingers across my head with tentative fingers. “Holy shit, Star. You are… Fuck I don’t know if I can describe it. Magnificent.” He looked over at Reese. “She’s still in there right? She’s not all snow leopard?”
Reese shrugged. “I don’t know. This is only the third time I’ve ever seen it. But I figure Lincoln would be in ribbons if Celeste wasn’t in control.”
I chuffed again, and swung my head toward the man in question. He continued to stare unwaveringly down at me, and even my leopardess wanted to submit to his Alpha vibe. But he was still a human, so I raised my lip again, showing him my pretty pearly whites.
He dropped to his knees, and I rushed up toward him. Vincent squeaked out a warning, but I didn’t stop until I was inches from his face. I stared into his eyes, showing him that it was me still in here.
Then I licked his face. Yeah, a snow leopard tongue felt like a cat tongue, but worse. That shit hurt like a bitch on human skin.
“Ugh,” he protested, and I rolled back onto my side, huffing out more laughter. He dropped his fingers to my fur and I rubbed my face along his palm.
Then I turned back into a human and his hand rested on my cheek and not my head. “That’s…” he seemed to run out of words.
Vincent walked over to the wet bar in the corner. “I’m going to need a drink and you’re going to have to explain all this real slow, Star.”
As Vincent got a round of scotch, Reese went and got me a glass of milk. Lincoln just continued to stand there and stare through me, like he was waiting for his mind to catch up with his eyes. At least, until Vincent stuffed a crystal tumbler into his hands.
Then Vincent whipped his shirt over his head and handed it to me. Oh yeah. I was naked. Whoops.
“I have no problem with your nudity, Star, but it's hard to concentrate when looking at your tits, and I feel like I need all my brain cells for this conversation.” I laughed and it morphed into a yawn. Shifting when I was pregnant seemed to suck up more of my energy. Reese returned from the kitchen, handing me my milk and then dragging me back onto his lap like I hadn’t just turned into a big cat.
I stretched and curled up, trying to ignore the fact that my naked ass was pressed to the front of his jeans. I also tried to ignore the hard line of his dick, but that was more difficult. “What do you guys want to know? I’m a snow leopard shifter. The guys today? Supernatural bounty hunters.”
Lincoln spoke. “The baby?”
I shrugged. “I’m a half blood, and he or she would be even less. Maybe he’ll be a shifter, maybe he will just be an average human with some extra perks. It's a bit of a genetic lottery.”
“Do you have like a pack, or a family, or something?” Lincoln spoke for the first time, and in true Lincoln fashion, went straight for the jugular.
I shook my head. “No. I’m the bastard child of LA new money and the gardener. When my mother found out she was pregnant, she had my biological father deported back to whatever country he’d come from. When she realized I turned into this,” I indicated myself, “she kicked me out. Told everyone I’d died in a skiing accident in Switzerland.”
Vincent huffed. “Sounds right. How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
Lincoln turned away, but his body was vibrating with rage. Vincent was frowning at me. “Holy shit, you’re Celeste Van Pell. Daughter of Prestcott and Winona Van Pell. Our families run in similar circles. I’m pretty sure I attended your wake.”
I huffed, because it was an old emotional wound, but that bastard still hurt. “Figures. Selfish bitch would want sympathy even if she is a dirty rotten liar.”
“She threw a thirteen year old girl out onto the streets?” Lincoln growled, and my snow leopard wanted to roll over and purr some more. But Lincoln was livid. Incandescent with rage. It was kind of something to behold.
I stood, and placed a gentle hand on his arm. I tried not to feel hurt when he wrenched away. “It’s okay. I ended up fine. She prepaid for a little studio apartment for a year, and then I figured it out.”
He whirled around and got in my face. “Was it, Celeste? How old were you when you learned about the bounty hunters, hmm?” I didn’t answer, but he wasn’t done. “How old were you when you realized that normal human men wanted to take advantage of a desperate young girl? It’s not okay, Celeste.”
He turned and stomped toward his bedroom, and I watched him go with bewilderment. Vincent came over and hugged me to his chest. It didn’t even occur to me to protest. I wanted his comfort.
“Don’t worry, Star. It isn’t you. Linc has his own demons. He’ll be okay.” He kissed the top of my head. “I, for one, am glad you aren’t dead in the Swiss Alps.” He pulled me back to the couch, stuffing me down beside Reese and then plopping down on my otherside.
“Tell me everything.”
I was curled up in Reese’s arms and it was blissfully nice. His warm breath puffed over my neck, and his arm was wrapped around my waist, his palm cupping my stomach. The baby fluttered against his hand, like it knew its daddy.
He was sound asleep, and he had the happy, restful sleep of a man who’d never had to live on the streets.
I could hear Lincoln roaming in the kitchen. I’d told myself he needed space, but as if it was completely separate from my brain, my body gently disentangled itself from Reese and climbed from beneath the covers. I was drawn to his pain.
I padded out into the living room on soft feet, and he was standing in front of the full length windows, looking out over the endless sea of lights.
I made a little noise so he knew I was there, and I watched the muscles in his shoulders tense, but he didn’t turn to face me. I yearned to wrap my body around his and heal his pain, but I didn’t even know what I was healing. So I just went with instinct. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek against his back and holding him tight, anchoring him. He was still tense in my arms, but when he realized I wasn’t going to move, he relaxed muscle by muscle.
He lifted his hand and placed it over mine where it rested against his abs and we just stood there in silence, only the sound of a clock and our heartbeats marring it.
We stood there for what felt like endless minutes before he spoke. “I grew up middle class. Not as rich as Vincent, or probably even you, but not too bad.” His voice reverberated through my cheek where it rested on his back. “When I was five, my mother fell down the stairs and broke her collarbone. No big deal, she had to have a cast but that was it. The doctor prescribed her some serious pain relievers and she got hooked. She took more and more, until the Doctor stopped prescribing her refills and she got desperate. She started getting them off the street, and when they stopped working, she went into harder stuff.” He sighed heavily, his muscles curling in on themselves. “One day, I came home from school and my father was gone. With him went our comfortable middle class life.”
I didn’t like where this story was going, but he obviously needed to get it off his chest. “Meanwhile, my mom was a ghost of her former self. She started hocking all our shit to pay for drugs, even though she said it was to buy food. Eventually, her dealer moved in and my older brother started pedaling shit on street corners for him.” He shuddered. “It went downhill fast. Her boyfriend got her hooked on some hard stuff, things that would send her into rages. I was seven at the time. My brother eventually joined a gang and became this bitter, angry creature that was nothing like the kid I’d idolized. Eventually, the shadow of my mother got knocked up and had a baby.” My fingers curled against his abs, but I said nothing. “They didn’t have the mental faculties to take care of it, so she became my baby. I stopped going to school so I could care for her. In hindsight, I should have let protective services take her away, give her to a loving family who would have given her a perfect life.”
“When she was about three, my mother got a bad batch of whatever the drug of the week was. When my baby sister todd
led toward her, my mom freaked out, and backhanded her across the face. She bounced off the coffee table and hit her head on the floor. They tell me that she landed in a way that snapped her neck. A completely freak accident. My mom lost it. She picked me up, threw me across the room, and tried to stab me with a kitchen knife. I got hold of the knife and turned it. She slipped and it embedded in her chest.”
I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the rest. It was so fucking tragic. Lincoln was shaking beneath my hands. “I called for help. She bled out on the kitchen floor before they could arrive. The cops took me away, questioned me, and I got sent to juvenile hall because they couldn’t find anyone who would take me or pay my bail. Not my brother, that was for sure, or my mom’s crackhead dealer boyfriend. My father was MIA. My mother’s death was eventually ruled self defense, but by that time the damage was done. I missed my baby sister's funeral. I got sent to a group home. Bounced around foster care. No one wanted a killer for a foster kid long term. I aged out.”
I just held him as he sucked in shuddering breath after shuddering breath. “I’m sorry I freaked out about you turning up, about you moving in, about everything. I just… I don't like things I can’t control.”
I pressed the softest kiss between his shoulder blades; a kiss that said you aren’t alone anymore.
He spun in my arms, swooping down to kiss me. Suddenly, I was the one being held, his lips covering mine with a searing kiss. All that pain, the torment, he channelled into his kiss, and I ate his pain like it was a meal.
He dragged his lips away, panting. “I don’t want to control you, Celeste, but I’m not sure how to do this without it.”
I kissed him back, gentler this time, and it promised him things that I had no right to promise. His hands ran under Reese’s oversized shirt, stroking up my bare spine. They were softer than I’d have imagined, and spread wide, they covered most of my back.
He spun me so my back was pressed against the glass window, his body curving into mine, even though he had to stoop a little to kiss me.
He dropped to his knees, pushing my sleep shorts down to my ankles. He pulled one of my legs over his shoulder and I slid up the window until I was standing on my toes, my naked ass pressed to the glass.
He touched his lips softly to the tender flesh of my inner thigh, and I reached down to wrap my fingers in his hair, tugging a little. I didn’t want it to be gentle. I wasn't breakable. He chuckled, puffing air across my wet pussy. Then he bit my thigh and I moaned, curling toward him. Grabbing my other thigh, he lifted my other leg up so I was suspended between the glass wall and his shoulders, his face burying between my thighs with ferocity. His tongue stroked and swirled, his nose nudging my clit as he lapped at me. He ate me like I was his last meal and it was heady.
He held me easily, and I felt my orgasm creeping up, my moans getting louder despite my efforts to stifle them. I was so fucking close, and that’s when he stopped.
I snarled. My leopardess and I were in agreement right now. We were going to maim him if he didn’t get back to it. But he just chuckled, dropping one of my legs to the ground as he slid up my body, his tongue trailing a wet line. “Fuck you taste like heaven. I’m about to blow in my shorts, and I want to feel you come around me.”
I wanted to say something witty, but he had pushed up my shirt and had my nipple in his mouth and every smartass thought disappeared out of my brain. He picked me up, sliding me up the cold window. The chill against my back contrasting with the heat of his body was sending my brain into sensory overload. He lifted me easily and I wrapped my legs around his waist, grinding my body against his abs, seeking the relief.
“Lincoln,” I moaned and he chuckled again.
“I like the way you purr my name,” he whispered against my ear, and my whole body tingled.
I turned my face so I could capture his lips with mine, dragging his full bottom lip between mine and tugging. His dick twitched against my pussy, and I dug my heels into his ass. “Lincoln, please.”
He pressed me against the glass with his body, pushing his sweats down with one hand. His dick sprung free and slid against the folds of my core. I wiggled, trying to get more. “Easy,” he growled, and slid me slowly, purposefully down on his cock. I let my head bang back against the glass as he bottomed out inside me.
He grabbed my chin and held my face to his. “Why did you have to be so fucking beautiful?”
Then he pulled back and slammed into me again and any answer I may have had was washed away by pleasure. He drove himself up into my body over and over and I came on his cock so hard he shuddered and stopped, breathing hard through his nose. He pressed his nose into the crook of my shoulder as he panted. When the waves of pleasure stopped riding my body, he sucked in air and began to move again.
“You make me want to blow like a two minute man. You are so wet and tight,” he groaned, driving up inside me, his pelvis rubbing against my sensitive clit. I couldn’t do anything but grip his shoulders tightly, my nails scraping against his skin, making him hiss but thrust harder. His lips sucked at my throat and his fingers gripped my thighs roughly. There’d probably be fingermarks against them tomorrow but damn I loved it.
When he replaced his lips with his teeth, biting the column of my throat, my second orgasm smacked me into the stratosphere, all pretence of silence gone as I screamed his name. He slammed into me once more, roaring his own release as he came deep inside me.
I ran my hand up over his neck, burying my fingers in his hair. I sucked in air, my brain trying to catch up with my mind.
His body started to shake, and I felt his hot tears against my neck. I made soft noises, reassurances, nonsense that I was sure he couldn’t hear. He just cried silently against me, both of us half naked and all the way fucked up.
I looked past his head and noticed Vince standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the soft lamp of the living room. He sauntered over until he was just behind us. He pressed a kiss to Lincoln’s shoulder.
“Come on. Let’s go to bed,” he crooned softly, and Lincoln dragged in a shuddering breath. He slid his softening dick from between my thighs, but his arms remained around me. He held me as he walked down the hall, stopping at the bathroom so I could clean up, and then picking me up again like some kind of teddy bear. When we got to Vincent’s room, somehow Reese was still asleep. I looked at Vincent, my arms tightening around Lincoln.
“There’s room for all of us.”
Vincent gave me a lopsided grin and nodded. We crept into the room, and I climbed in, sliding right up against Reese. He mumbled a little, and I pressed a kiss to his lips.
He blinked at me sleepily, then at Lincoln and Reese standing by the bed. I pressed my hand to his cheek. “Linc and Vince are going to sleep with us tonight,” I said softly.
Reese, bless his goddamn heart, just nodded and shifted closer to the edge. He wrapped his arms around my body and snuggled me into the curve of his own. Lincoln climbed in beside me and Vincent got in on the other side.
I pressed my fingertips to Lincoln’s cheekbones. “Sleep. I’ll guard your dreams tonight,” I whispered, leaning forward to kiss him gently.
Reese ran his thumb softly over my hip then gave it a squeeze. He approved. In that moment, I could see how you could love men like these.
But it wasn’t in my future and I could almost hear my heart cracking in two.
“Night, Star,” Vincent murmured. “Sweet dreams.”
I wish I could have told him this was the sweetest dream of all.
Chapter Sixteen
Vincent
I had to look up the signs, but I was pretty sure I was in a relationship. She’d met all my friends. Hell, she’d slept with them all, and me, and then we all had breakfast afterwards. We spent every weekend together. I want to take her places and show her things. Check, check, check. I want to talk to her all the time, kiss her all the time, and fuck her sweet, tight body all the damn time. Yep, yep, yep.
According to
Cosmo, I was in a relationship. In the month since her abduction attempt, there’d been no other problems. Some of that was down to the fact that Lincoln had locked down security in our building tighter than a nun’s vagina. But Celeste thought that perhaps it was a crime of opportunity. It happened. Apparently, shifters ran a little hotter and were easily detectable by heat gun.
My girlfriend was a fucking snow leopard. That was a bad acid trip I was never going to get used to because what the actual fuck?
We were on the couch now, her head on my lap as we watched some movie that made her cry even though it wasn’t even remotely sad. But I stroked her hair and let her create a little puddle of hormone tears on my jeans because, I don’t know, I liked her a fucking lot.
My phone blew up again, and I frowned. I’d been ignoring my manager, and the label, and they were getting upset.
She rolled onto her back, swiping her face with her sleeve. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
I shook my head. “Nope. They just want me to go to the label’s Halloween party.”
She frowned. “You don’t want to go?”
I shrugged, because I didn’t want to tell her that I’d rather stay home and let her cry into my jeans over the dog finding its way home in some kid’s movie. “What if I came too?”
I slid my hand down her body and played with the elastic waistband of her sweats. “I’d like it if you came too. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.” I winked and she laughed, slapping at my hand.
“Seriously. I need to get out of the house. The label will have lots of security to keep Lincoln happy. We could all go. You can pass me off as Lincoln’s pregnant girlfriend to the media.”
I booped her nose, because it was a pretty cute nose. “Star, you are Licoln’s pregnant girlfriend. And Reese’s pregnant girlfriend.” I paused and stared down at her, the look in her eyes crazily vulnerable. “My pregnant girlfriend.”
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